Tournees festival concludes Thursday with 'The Kid with a Bike'

For immediate release…
Monday – April 15, 2013

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. – The 2013 Tournées Festival of New French Films at Northern Kentucky University will conclude on Thursday, April 18, with two screenings of Le Gamin Au Vélo (The Kid with a Bike) – one at 3:30 p.m. and another at 7 p.m., both in the Griffin Hall George and Ellen Rieveschl Digitorium.

The film, which features English subtitles, runs 87 minutes and was directed by Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne in 2011. Featured on 10 best lists around the world, this sublime tale of love and redemption begins with an 11-year-old boy in frantic, desperate motion. Refusing to acknowledge that he’s been abandoned by his father, Cyril escapes the children’s home where he’s been living. As the authorities from the children’s home catch up with him, Cyril, refusing to return, tightly grips a total stranger, a woman named Samantha, who will prove to be the heartbroken boy’s savior.

With a two-story digital-tile screen, multiple-speaker surround sound and stadium-style seating, the Rieveschl Digitorium offers one of the finest movie-viewing facilities in the region.

The Tournées program is sponsored by the French American Cultural Exchange, which provides grant money for colleges and universities to host film festivals showcasing some of the best of recent French cinema. In 2010, the NKU Cinema Studies Program partnered with the departments of English and world languages and literatures to make NKU the first school in the region to host the Tournées.

Support for the Tournées Festival is provided by the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, the Centre National de la Cinématographie, the Florence Gould Foundation, the Grand Marnier Foundation and highbrow entertainment. Additional sponsors include the NKU Department of English, Department of World Languages and Literatures, College of Arts and Sciences, and Cincinnati World Cinema.

Admission to each of the films is free to students and anyone with an NKU ID and just $5 for the general public. Each screening will be followed by a discussion led by an NKU faculty member. Advanced tickets can be reserved by contacting Tiffany Budd in the NKU Department of World Languages and Literatures at (859) 572-7650 or buddt1@nku.edu.